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I've been assigned to help in the creation of a "Employee Office Manual" for our company. So, I've started putting some how-tos and screenshots together.

I came across our official policy on computer software. Now, keep in mind that our IT dept. is like most other IT depts., strung out on Microsoft.

Get a load of this:

The security and integrity of the network, and its data, will always come first. As a result, any software program... which will compromise the network's integrity or which will adversely affect network functions will not be allowed.

Heeeelllllooooooo!!!! Microsoft Office and IE are standard issues around here. We're talking about the most insecure and virus/spam/malware prone software around! So WTFs wrong with this policy? Pretty useless, if you ask me.

Nimrods.

Heh - Good point Judland !

i'll tell you a little story !

for more than 5 years, I was working in a fairly large company, 5000+ users. I was the "lucky" dude that had the responsibillity for the Antivirus systems and patching on the PC's - amongst a lot of other things.

Was that a nerve wrecking job - Yes you bet !

I got pretty paranoid. I belive the most common mistake, is the assumption that the "ordenary" users pose the biggest threat.

That is at least my opinion, as most of our viruses, we got from people within the IT department. Especially from developers, especially the .NET ones .. dont get me wrong here, I have nothing against developers

however at one time a dev, who at that time, had admin rights, DISABLED the antivirus program on a fairly large number of users, in order for his crappy application to work.

incidently, at the same time, the antivirus program was updated, so it included scanning for malware/spyware. What happend was, that a large number of people in the IT department had all sorts of spooky things installed on their PC's eventhough this was not allowed.

what happend next was that, allmost, all in the IT department got their admin priv taken from them.

Were they pissed - Yes
Were they still able to do their job, without admin rights - YES !

it's my belief that only a handfull of people should have admin rights and only use those for administrative tasks (installing software/adding users and so on) If people (users) can't install software they won't.........

The problem with "Corperate IT policies" is that most employees don't know that they exist ! And those who do, don't follow them anyway ...

/iceman

Judland wrote:I've been assigned to help in the creation of a "Employee Office Manual" for our company. So, I've started putting some how-tos and screenshots together.

I came across our official policy on computer software. Now, keep in mind that our IT dept. is like most other IT depts., strung out on Microsoft.

Get a load of this:

The security and integrity of the network, and its data, will always come first. As a result, any software program... which will compromise the network's integrity or which will adversely affect network functions will not be allowed.

Heeeelllllooooooo!!!! Microsoft Office and IE are standard issues around here. We're talking about the most insecure and virus/spam/malware prone software around! So WTFs wrong with this policy? Pretty useless, if you ask me.

Nimrods.

that is just common practice today - where I work too. - security and windows is contradiction - an oxymoron - it's an enigma wrapped inside a riddle.

the first step to good security is get rid of windows

windows as it exists today is nothing but a standalone pc operating system - it was not written from the start for networking - networking was an afterthought.

windows is best for a single pc with a printer hooked up to it and no network or modem.
that is the only secure windows installation - oh ya no cd or floppy either.

microsft has to pitch the code they got and just start over - but that will never happen because of backward capabilities and all the corporations they would piss off.
so meanwhile they just patch what they got and pile more junk on top of an already junky foundation.

i picture windows as this tarpit of code - once you get in it you will never come out clean.